I have a few (more) translations that I am struggling with. Although I'd love to post all my translations here for feedback (and mass correction!), I'll resist the urge, and stick to those that are troubling me the most. Here goes:

Finally, at (or by?) the fifth hour of night, the boy came back. Mother was angry.

I'm unsure as to how best convey 'quinta hora noctis'. It sounds clunky. I was tempted to translate 'at five in the evening', but without any decent knowledge of Roman time, I don't want to assume that this is what it means.

Similarly:2. 'eece! tertia hora noctis redii'

'Look! I have returned at (or by?) the third hour of night.'

English -> Latin3. For three hours Quintus stayed in the forum; he was waiting for Gaius.

tres horas Quintus in foro mansit; Gaium exspectabat erat.

My main concern here is the use of 'erat'. I'm still having trouble identifying when it is/not necessary. i.e. could I have instead translated simply: '...Gaium exspectabat'?

4. Quintus greeted him and said, 'I have waited for you for three hours.'

I can't believe I'm struggling with iratus/iratum - but I just can't wrap my brain around this one. I'm confused because it seems like 'be angry' is behaving like an infinitive... Then I started thinking maybe it's (masculine) accusative -um... to be honest I'm completely lost. And then there's the 'es/esto', which, again, I'm not sure is either correct, or necessary.

Well, that's six of the trickiest for me. In my beginners world. If anyone would be so kind as to offer their thoughts, I'd be really grateful. I may even send a fruit basket as thanks. Or draw a picture of one to scan in.

3. Erat is not merely unnecessary, it's wrong. Expectabat encodes all the necessary information as to voice, tense, number and person. It's not a periphrastic form.

4. Salutavit, not salutit. The two sentences with et are ok here, although Latin would probably use a participle for the first verb without et, e.g., Quintus eum salutans 'tres horas' inquit 'te exspectavi.

[quote="Qimmik"]1. This is correct. An article on Roman timekeeping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_timekeeping The fifth hour of the night would probably be around 11 pm in winter, but Roman hours varied with the seasons.Thank you!

2. Correct. Probably "at" is better in English.Agreed.

3. Erat is not merely unnecessary, it's wrong. Expectabat encodes all the necessary information as to voice, tense, number and person. It's not a periphrastic form.Thank you; I have struggled a bit with 'esse' and its use; I have finally made the distinction between its use, and, importantly, to not use it as an auxiliary verb.

4. Salutavit, not salutit. The two sentences with et are ok here, although Latin would probably use a participle for the first verb without et, e.g., Quintus eum salutans 'tres horas' inquit 'te exspectavi.Thanks for picking up 'salutit' - had I looked more carefully, I'd have seen it looked wrong! Salutans: I hadn't considered!

6. Noli requires an infinitive: Noli irasci. Irascor is a 3rd conjugation deponent, i.e., it's active in meaning but is conjugated with passive endings. Irasci is the present infinitive. (The perfect participle, iratus, happens to look like a 1st conjugation verb, but don't let that confuse you.)Thank you - this all (unsurprisingly) makes great sense! Your feedback is extremely helpful.

Many thanks again - I wish I could comment further, but I'm still only just comprehending this, and I don't yet have the ability to have an in-depth discussion about the grammar. Hopefully one day I will.Amber